National Coordinator for the Safety and Security in Schools Unit in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and information, Richard Troupe, says resolving the issue of bullying and cyberbullying in schools requires the collective responsibility of all stakeholders.
Mr. Troupe explained that bullying typically involves three key parties – the offender, the victim, and the bystander.
He cautioned students who believe it is acceptable to remain bystanders that, by doing so, they too contribute to the problem.
“We have been encouraging our students… [particularly] those who [see themselves as] bystanders and not directly involved, that when they see incidents of violence and bullying and cyberbullying, they need to report it to the school administration, somebody within the school, so that the matter can be treated,” Mr. Troupe added.
He was speaking during a recent Legal Aid Council online forum, titled ‘Know the Law, Save the Child: Under-16 Sexual Offences and Bullying’.
Mr. Troupe further stated that it has been recognised that while schools work towards creating safe and secure learning environments, children are increasingly taking their conflicts into the streets.
“That now has become a cause for concern, because children recognise that when they go off-site to resolve conflict situations, they are not necessarily seeing adults in that space intervening to try to de-escalate situations. Too often we see adults being involved… videotaping and sharing these situations, and we’re saying that cannot be the strategy,” he remarked.
“That’s why we’re making the call that if we’re serious about resolving the issue of bullying and cyberbullying, it is going to take the collective responsibility of all stakeholders,” Mr. Troupe added.
In 2023, the National Assessment of Perception of School Safety and Security survey was conducted in partnership with the Ministry of National Security, and the Planning Institute of Jamaica. (PIOJ).
In the survey, 331 schools across all 14 parishes participated, engaging 11,981 stakeholders — of whom 9,750 were children.
“Fifty-five per cent of our nation’s children, that is the 9,750 students that participated in the survey, felt that the safest place for them was still their schools, not their homes, not the communities they are from, but the school. That was a key finding from the survey, and it’s very instructive to the conversation around the issue of bullying.
“The other thing that we found very interesting in the survey was 45 per cent of students felt that school remained a very unsafe space for them and, importantly, it is the students themselves who feel that students make them feel unsafe. It is suggesting that bullying and cyber bullying remain a major concern in our nation’s schools and among our students,” Mr. Troupe added.
He noted that the violence observed in schools, including bullying and cyberbullying, reflects the wider patterns of violence present in communities and homes.
“That’s why I am saying that the conversation is important because the solution to resolve this issue is not only specific to the confines of our nation’s school. The survey [also] found that bullying is 1.2 per cent higher in our primary schools than our high schools,” he stated.
Mr. Troupe indicated that the Ministry has been encouraging schools to “flip the script” through the Safe Schools Certification Programme, which is designed to promote safe, inclusive, and anti-bullying environments across educational institutions.
It is funded under the United Kingdom (UK)–Jamaica Violence Prevention Partnership.
“We have started, for a second year now, a safe-school-certification awards programme, where we would have assessed schools in terms of safety and security programmes, creating safe and secure learning environment and ensuring that those schools are recognised. We give them a plaque and so, for last year, 71 schools were certified as safe, being level one, two or three,” Mr. Troupe said.
This year, a total of 54 institutions were certified — 29 primary and 25 high schools across eight parishes.
Mr. Troupe advised that within the next three to four years, the Ministry hopes that the majority of the nation’s 1,010 public schools will be certified as safe-and-secure learning environments.
“That is not suggesting that things will not happen in these spaces. But it is a recognition that bullying and cyberbullying will thrive in environments where children do not feel safe and secure.
So that is a big investment from the Ministry of Education,” he stated.
Mr. Troupe noted that over the past four to five years, the Ministry has partnered with the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs to ensure that schools have access to restorative practices training.
“What we have been saying to schools and stakeholders in schools, including our students, is that it is not good enough to talk about a [grievance]… we have to find non-violent ways to resolve conflict. The restorative practices training is a two-day, school-based programme for at least 30 persons within each institution…, [equipping them] to work through conflicts and to find non-violent strategies [for resolution],” Mr. Troupe stated.
